


An End Has A Start

by lisachan



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 06:36:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13428918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: "Kill me. If you have to kill someone, if there has to be punishment, then kill me."8x08 what if





	An End Has A Start

**Author's Note:**

> What if starting from episode 8x08 scene where Carl confronts Negan, asking him to kill him to buy time for Alexandria's people. I wondered what might've happened if Carl had been honest, if he really wanted to sacrifice himself to save the city. After that, everything came out of my own mind. Naturally, THE THING that brought us the midseason finale cliffhanger never happened here.  
> Written for the Clash of the Writing Titan #8's first week, Mission 2, Prompt: "Partenza" (start, but also the act of leaving; both apply to the story).  
> Also written for Maritombola #8's prompt #10, "broken doll", which Carl undoubtedly is.

“Kill me.”

Carl was hoping he would’ve managed to say the words in a way that would’ve not allowed Negan or the other Saviors to hear the fear in the back of his throat. He was hoping to speak out loud easily, showing no hesitation, no childish anxiety.

He failed. 

“What did you say?”

“If you have to kill someone, if there has to be punishment, then kill me. I'm serious.”

He wonders if he sounds believable. To understand that, he would have to look into Negan’s eyes from much closer. But he’s too far away, and the night is definitely too dark to get even a glimpse at the back of the eyes of a man who doesn’t make it easy for people to read him even in broad daylight.

“You wanna die?” Negan asks, getting closer to the wall. Still not close enough to see, Carl thinks.

Negan moves like some creepy nightmarish clown, dangling right and left. Carl knows he does it on purpose. More than half the shit Negan pulls out of his psychopath hat is perfectly designed to scare his opponent. Carl suspects a very smart and dangerously balanced man to be hidden underneath the crazy shenanigans. He supposes that’s the part of Negan he’s trying to reach now. He supposes, if there’s even just an inkling of sanity behind those amused dark eyes, that’s what he’s going for right now.

“No, I don't. But I will. It's gonna happen.” He moistens his lips. It’s cold and windy on top of the wall, and they’re all chapped. A passing thought shakes him – he’s never gonna be the kid he once were again. Whatever happens tonight, wherever he wakes up tomorrow, even if he doesn’t wake up at all, or even worse, even if he wakes up dead, he’s damaged, there’s something he’s lost forever, and that’s the child he was. He thought part of that child would always be with him, that he’d hold a trace of him forever in his heart. But if he tries to look deep inside, he finds nothing of that boy. No particle of him survived. In a way, he’s already dead. “If… If me dying could stop this, if it can make things different— for us, for you, for all those other kids— it'd be worth it,” he says.

Negan seems interested. Carl can almost hear the gears of his brain whirr. Obviously. This is the firstborn son of his number one public enemy offering himself up for the taking. That’s a situation that would give anyone pause.

He’s about to say something, probably ask where the catch is, but Carl decides he can’t let him have the upper hand in this conversation. It’s already too dangerous as it is – he’s betting the lives of all the people in Alexandria on the need Negan might have to hurt his dad more than the city.

“I mean, was this the plan?” he asks, his voice breaking again, “Was it supposed to be this way? Is this who you wanted to be?”

Something changes in Negan’s eyes. It’s nothing more than the spark of an instant, a flash of light passing behind his dark pupils, fast like a comet, nothing but a flame breaking the night for a second before disappearing completely. And yet, Negan starts smiling, and there’s something wicked in that smile, something victorious, and finally Carl starts wondering if he didn’t bet on this more than he could afford to.

“Of course I could kill you, kid,” Negan says, rotating the bat and then resting it on top of his own shoulder, “But what a goddamn waste would that be? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find kids with such balls as you ‘round here these days?”

He laughs, and Carl shivers. 

“So?” he says, hiding fear behind tension, “What’s it gonna be?”

Negan’s smile widens up. He puts the bat down and uses it as a cane, leaning on it. “Come down here, Carl. If you really wanna save this place, come with me.”

Carl frowns, backing off a little. “You don’t need to drag me somewhere else if you wanna kill me. You can do it here.”

“I already told you it’d be a waste to kill you off. Nah, kid, you’re one of a kind. Special and shit. You’re coming with me. To Sanctuary. This is my condition – my only condition. You wanna save Alexandria? You wanna sacrifice yourself, fucking Prince Charming on your beautiful white horse? You’ll come with me.”

It takes Carl an outrageous amount of time to understand Negan’s not joking. That he really wants to take him away.

He thinks about the people of Alexandria – are they gone yet? Did they manage to escape?

He thinks about his dad – where can he be now? Why hasn’t he come back yet?

He thinks about Judith – what’s it gonna be of her if he goes? Who’s gonna take care of his baby sister?

Finally, he thinks about himself. Past this wall there’s a world he doesn’t like. Governed by a person he hates to understand. Why Negan likes him, that’s a mystery. But does he have a chance to survive with him? Does he _want_ that chance?

Slowly, he starts climbing down the wall. “I’m coming down,” he says, raising his hands when he sees the crowd surrounding Negan raise their weapons, “Don’t shoot. I’m doing as you said.”

“That’s a nice start, kid,” Negan says, smiling wickedly, “Keep doin’ just that and you’ll see, no one’ll want to shoot your lil’ ass dead.”

Carl hates the way Negan talks to him. To everyone, really, so fucking condescending and patronizing. Still, he lands on the ground. He walks towards him.

“That’s right, kiddo, come to me,” Negan says, gesturing him to come closer. When he’s close enough, he’s not sure what he was expecting, but Negan grabs him by his wrist and makes him turn around, twisting his arm behind his back and pushing upward, hard enough to hurt him. Carl whimpers and regrets not to have brought along his gun – but then again, what use would’ve had been in such a situation? Negan would’ve probably found a way to disarm him in any case, and his gun would’ve just become one of many guns in Negan’s arsenal.

Besides, he chose this. He chose to surrender to him. For Alexandria – his people.

He tells himself that as he hisses, trying to relax his muscles because he knows that right now any movement would only bring forth more pain.

“That’s right, relax,” Negan smiles. He’s so close Carl can feel his breath on his skin. Hot and moist with the wetness of the night. Scary and thrilling like Carl imagines suicide. “Sorry for this, but you already tried to kill me once and I’m not dying to repeat the experience.”

Carl only spares a second to wonder what is the _this_ Negan preemptively apologized for, when someone hits him on the back of his head and he falls on the ground, unconscious.

*

He wakes up surrounded in softness, and since he remembers perfectly where he was and who was he with when he fell that does nothing but alarm him. The room is dimly lit, but there’s light enough to see, and he casts a glance around trying to fight the sense of impending danger he unconsciously connects to the furniture. The four posts bed, the two couches, so different in style to make clear at the first look that they’ve been scavenged or stolen to someone else, the dark curtains at the windows, the shelving crowded with random scavenging trophies, the stuffed antelope head hanging from the wall.

It can’t be, but it is.

“You’re awake,” Negan catches his attention, and Carl turns around, finally spotting him resting with his shoulders against the wall, arms crossed loosely over his chest, “Finally. I almost thought about wakin’ you up, but you were sleepin’ so peacefully, it would’ve been a crime.”

“Negan,” Carl hisses, instinctively searching for his gun through the sheets and only stopping when his body, following his mind, remembers his gun’s not by his side anymore, “Why the fuck did you bring me here?”

“Whoa, kid, whoa,” Negan smiles, moving apart from the wall and closer to the bed, “Language.”

“Shut up,” Carl spits out, “Answer the question.”

Amused by his defiance, Negan smiles again. “Here, to the Sanctuary? Because I clearly have plans for you, son.”

“Don’t call me son— I’m not your fucking son,” Carl bites at his own tongue, trying to contain the furious shaking of his voice, “And what about your bedroom?”

Negan’s smile widens even more. “Perhaps I had plans for that too?”

Carl snaps as a rubber band, flattening himself against the headboard of the bed. “I swear if you did anything to me—”

“Relax, kid,” Negan laughs out loud, shaking his head, “Believe me, if I had done anything to you, with a dick my size, you’ll know. Besides, I like my women conscious.”

“I’m not a woman!” Carl screams in a high pitch.

Negan tilts his head to the side, smiling amiably. “Then,” he says, with the most serene voice, “You’ve got nothing to fear, am I right?”

Carl bites at his tongue again, hard enough to taste the blood. He mustn’t lose control of himself. He mustn’t let Negan get underneath his skin. That’s what he wants. That’s why he took him here. He probably thinks he can manipulate him, turn him into a weapon against the Alexandria community. Against his dad. But he doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know anything about him. He wants to keep him here, hold him captive? Carl will allow that. But to become an instrument in his hands – he will never allow something like that to happen. He’d rather be dead.

So he takes a deep breath. He calms down. This man can’t touch him. He can hurt him, of course, he can bury him in a cell and starve him, he can torture him, he can feed him to the walkers, but he can’t touch him. Nothing can. Things stopped touching him long before. Before losing his eye. Before that man had him flattened on the ground on his stomach. When he had to pick up a gun and shoot his dying mother in the head.

He curls his lips up in half a careless smile, relaxing his muscles, bending one leg at the knee and resting his elbow on it. “You think you can impress me with this?” he says in a snicker, “With your innuendos and your attempts at belittling me treating me like a woman? Dude, please. Do you have an idea what I’ve been told from men and women since I started hitting puberty? The apocalypse tends to take all inhibitions away from mankind. And you think calling me a woman will make me feel small, that it’ll offend me? Some of the toughest people I know are women. Your games don’t work on me, Negan.”

Negan keeps smiling, amused. He closes the distance between himself and the bed and sits on the edge of it, showing clear satisfaction when Carl stubbornly refuses to back off.

“See, that’s why I felt I had to bring you here, kid,” he says after a while, “You’ve got balls, I told you. It’s a rare quality, these days.”

“Bullshit,” Carl hisses, and he’d spit if his mouth wasn’t dry as the desert, “Don’t flatter me, it’s gonna get you nowhere.”

“Precisely where I wanna go,” Negan grins, “You don’t believe you’ve got balls?”

“I _know_ I do, but I’m not the only one.”

“See, that’s where you’re mistaken,” Negan insists, standing up and walking around the bed, to come sit closer, “You think all the dumb heroes out there have balls? That your dad got some, only ‘cause he’s careless enough to come up with crazy plans to try and break me? Only cos he charges everything that moves against him and his little court? Please. That’s just dumb recklessness. You don’t think the donkey’s brave just because it kicks you in the balls when you try to rein it in. It’s just a fucking donkey. He doesn’t got balls, just the dumbest instinct. Being smart, that’s having real balls. Being smart in a world like this. That takes fucking bravery.”

“And you think I’m smart,” Carl laughs bitterly, shaking his head, “Seriously? I came after you. I jumped in a van and tried to take you on my own. And I’m here, now, aren’t I? I let you take me here. How is that smart, in your book?”

Negan’s smile falters a little. It’s only a moment. Carl still notices it.

“The rules are different for kids,” he simply answers, “Survival skills is what makes you smart.”

“I’ve put myself in danger more times than I can count.”

“And yet,” Negan finally stands up, straightening his leather jacket, “You’re still alive. You should think about that.”

Carl watches him move away from the bed and towards the door. He swallows, and then speaks again. “For how long?”

Negan turns to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “For how long what?”

“For how long will you keep me alive?”

“Well,” Negan laughs, “As long as it fucking pleases me, kid. Might be longer than you’d have lived with your dad, who knows. Something else?”

“I want another bedroom.”

“Ah, you’re killing me, Carl,” Negan smiles and shakes his head, “You’re killing me.”

He won’t have another bedroom. Not anytime soon.

*

He was fully expecting Negan to come sleep in the room at night, and it surprised him to realize he wasn’t coming. Late in the night, must’ve been four AM, not any earlier, with his stomach growling fiercely in direct opposition with his choice of refusing dinner when it had been presented to him around eight o’ clock in the evening, Carl was watching the door intently, his eye wide open, waiting for it to open up and reveal the smirking face he would so gladly destroy with a good hit of the man’s own baseball bat, when he suddenly knew that no, Negan wouldn’t be coming.

He had no idea how to handle the notion. He had expected to be imprisoned. Tortured. Killed, even, if not on the spot a few hours later. Instead there he was, sitting in the middle of the softest king size bed, cold food on the nightstand, warm blankets for the night, protection from the walkers, safe walls, the whole shebang.

And Negan wasn’t even gonna rub it in his face. 

He wakes up in the morning still feeling uneasy thinking about it. All this politeness makes him feel weird. It’s different from the last time he was here. Back then, Negan didn’t torture him physically, but he did all in his power to make him feel like shit. This time he’s doing something different – playing a different game. Carl needs to be careful. He needs to play too, not be played. 

“Wakey wakey, kiddo, rise and shine,” Negan says, finally entering the room together with the smell of fried eggs and bacon. He walks in nonchalantly and heads straight for the nightstand, expecting to find the plates empty and piled up on the tray and frowning deeply upon noticing that they aren’t. “Seriously, Carl,” he says with the voice of a disappointed father, “Do you have the faintest idea how long it took to scavenge this shit around here? And the effort needed to cook it for you without spitting in it? You should’ve eaten it, if anything to show gratitude.”

“Gratitude?” Carl frowns, “To you? For keeping me locked up in here?”

“Locked up?” Negan theatrically blinks a couple of times, putting down the new tray on the edge of the bed. It smells so good Carl’s mouth’s all watery, now. “Kid, you seriously didn’t try to leave the room?”

“Why should I have done it?”

“Because if you did you’d have found out you weren’t, in fact, locked in, dumb-o,” Negan smirks and sits on the edge of the bed, pushing the tray towards him, “Now, eat. You’re not a prisoner and you offend me by refusing my hospitality.”

“Your hospitality?” Carl frowns again, refusing to move towards the food, even though his body aches for it.

Negan looks at him for a few seconds, his eyes completely unreadable, as well as his whole expression. Carl finds himself vaguely wondering if he will ever get to understand this man, in the end. It’d be useful to, he thinks. But then again the thought is also scary, for reasons he doesn’t wanna start investigating now. All in all, he guesses, it is better not to understand him. To keep the gap between them well open.

Finally, Negan stands up. The bed wobbles for a moment, making Carl slightly nauseous. 

“You might’ve noticed,” Negan says, “That I ain’t tryin’ to break you, kid.”

Carl frowns and then turns away, knowing perfectly well that he himself was thinking about it up to a minute before Negan walked into the room. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It means you’re not my prisoner,” Negan says, “I didn’t kidnap you, Carl. You offered yourself. It’s a hell of a big difference and if you haven’t taken the time to think about it yet I suggest you do that promptly. If I had to submit you, believe me, you wouldn’t be sleepin’ in my bed, eatin’ my food and keepin’ me out of my goddamn room. But I don’t think I’ve gotta do that because you said _take me_ , and you came here on your own legs.” His lips curl into an amused smirk. “Well, maybe not exactly on your own legs. But still.”

“You’re delusional,” Carl snaps, flipping the tray with his hand. The plate overturns on the floor, spilling its contents, and so does the orange juice glass that stood next to the plate itself up to a few seconds before. “You’re delusional if you think if I’m here it’s because I wanna be here. I don’t wanna be here. I only came to save Alexandria.”

“Then, by all means,” Negan ceremoniously opens his arms and bows a little, a twisted imitation of some ancient courtesan bowing to a lady, “Feel free to leave. Go back to daddy. Go back to a place you already know it’s not enough for you.”

“Alexandria is everything to me.”

“Perhaps, but it’s still not enough for you.” Negan speaks with absolute certainty, holding his gaze, his lips still curled in that impossible, unbearable, disarming smile. “Look at yourself, kid. How old are you, fifteen? You already lost half your face. You’ve lost your mother, security, balance, innocence, but you haven’t lost your life and you haven’t lost yourself.”

“You don’t know me,” Carl looks back at him, eye afire, “Don’t you fucking dare telling me what I’ve lost and what I haven’t.”

“I don’t know you but I know kids, especially those your age, and especially in life or death situation. Jesus, you either drop your shit and let the world pass you over, or you become fucking kings.” He grins, grabbing Carl’s chest and forcing him to look up at his face, “That’s what I wanna see, kid. The fucking king inside you. That’s who I need.”

“Let _go_ of me!” Carl shakes him off, backing away from him and slapping his hand for good measure. He knows perfectly well he didn’t hurt him, but it’s the spite in the gesture, he wants that to weigh on him. And Negan’s smile falters, turns into a tight bitter smirk, and Carl knows he hit him way harder with that mere gesture than he did with his hand. “I don’t care about what you need. I will _never_ give you what you need.”

“Well,” Negan shrugs, straightening himself up, putting some distance back where it belongs, between them, “Then I guess you won’t be needed here much longer. But up until now, you’re welcome to stay, you’re welcome to leave, whatever you want. This is not your prison, boy. Like it or not, for as long as you _choose_ to stay, this is your _home_.”

*

He walks out of the room that very same day. He didn’t wanna do that – he wanted to remain inside, pretend he wouldn’t have enjoyed his unexpected freedom, but he couldn’t help himself. Enclosed spaces used to make him feel safe, but the prison changed that. Now he feels suffocated whenever the only door in a four-walled room remains locked.

He refuses to eat, though. He’s not an idiot, he knows he will have to do it, at some point. The only alternative would be leaving, and go back home to eat, but now that he knows he’d be allowed that he’s the one refusing to allow it to himself. Negan’s right about one thing – he _chose_ to be here. These are the consequences of that choice. 

So yes, of course at some point he’s gonna have to eat. But this world hasn’t become too practical yet to elude the power of symbolism, and even though refusing the food is nothing but a principle decision, and an empty protest, it is a principle and it is a protest nonetheless. Carl decides to stand by it for as long as his body will let him. Might be days. Might be weeks. However long it is, he will resist up to the very last moment. 

Negan reads that choice in his eye. One thing Carl understands immediately when he watches him deal with his men – he is a practical soul. He has ideas – and ideals – but nothing is worth a damn to him if it’s not practical. And soon enough he stops presenting food to Carl, knowing perfectly well that, at this point, the moment he wants to eat it’ll be him asking for it, not the other way ‘round.

He lives on water and air for a week, then he decides he made his point, and asks for pizza.

Negan laughs. “Are you serious?” he says. Carl nods silently, and Negan tells him he better be worth the effort. Carl tries to ignore the implications. It’s obvious Negan wants to make use of him, somehow. Carl just doesn’t know how yet. All the options seem equally revolting – it’s the concept behind it, being destined to serve to a man he despises, in any capacity. Sometimes he thinks about it and he gets sick to the point of becoming feverish. This man killed Abraham. He killed Glenn. He threatened to kill him too, to set their houses on fire, he stole everything they had and danced on the memory of his dead mother. 

And yet he’s here. And he doesn’t miss home.

Negan delivers on the pizza. It’s not as good as the one Carl remembers from before the walkers, but then again he thinks that pizza had the taste of a world that’s lost forever. This new pizza tastes unfinished, like something new, barely built. The skeleton of a new society, the bone structure upon which layers and layers of muscles, fat, nerves and skin will adhere to form a new organism.

It hurts to know Negan will probably be the one to finally achieve that. To guess that maybe he always were the only one who could, the one who had the skills and the mindset and the necessary single-mindedness to get there where no one else among them could go, there where no one else among them even dared to picture in the back of their minds. While they were busy trying to find diapers and surviving the flu, while they wasted time looking for sanctuary in places that would only reveal themselves as traps down the road, Negan was already working to build something functional, a social caste system, working groups, dividing responsibilities among his people, getting himself representatives and prime ministers to spread his word all over the land.

They were Neanderthals trying to set fire to a bed of sticks while he was fucking leading his own personal Civil War. And they wondered how he managed to overturn them. They were eons apart and they didn’t even know it. And that’s probably what angers Carl the most, and at the same time what keeps him here, despite everything. There is an order to madness at the Sanctuary. It’s the order of a ruthless, cruel society that doesn’t take care of its own weakest links, a society built on the raw principle of survival, caring for nothing else.

He imagines the first men gathering in groups to be just the same. To _behave_ just the same. And it makes him furious that Negan and his people got there first. It makes him furious that while his dad and his own group wasted ruthlessness and cruelty on vengeance, like with the Terminus people, Negan were using them to build something lasting.

It should’ve been them. They were the better people. They had kindness. They were humane. They should’ve been the first building. But they never did. The closest they got there before Alexandria was at the prison, but that wasn’t life, that wasn’t the dream of a city, that was the insane, blind desire to secure themselves the chance to see the sun rise and set even if only for one more day, locking themselves behind thick walls and iron bars. And when they finally got to Alexandria, and found fertile soil to try and really start something, it was already too late. All their humanity, all their kindness had gotten lost. They could’ve tried building something on selfishness, but Negan beat them to that too.

Carl tries not to think about it as he enjoys his pizza. Comfort food has become a real pleasure now that there’s nothing much comforting anymore in the world. He still remembers the taste of that chocolate pudding he ate straight from the can sitting on a roof while a walker tried to grab him with its boney, wasted fingers. One of the best thing he ever swallowed.

“I like to watch you eat,” Negan says. Carl opens his eye and only then notices the man was sitting right across him on the other side of the table, simply watching.

He frowns, putting down the slice of pizza he was nibbling on right away. “Fucking creep,” he says, and Negan laughs.

“You seem to have a real taste for it, and I like that it clearly is a ritual for you,” Negan goes on as if he hadn’t even heard him, “You have no idea, kiddo, how people eat these days. They look like fuckin’ animals. They dip their faces into their bowls and swallow whatever enters their mouths. What’s the difference with a freakin’ walker burying its face in human entrails, tell me?”

“None,” he answers without hesitation, “You’re telling me you only noticed it in the way we handle food? We’ve all become beasts. In every aspect of our life. You’re the first.”

Negan comes up with an oblique smile as he tilts his head. He keeps looking at him, no embarrassment, no shame.

“You think I’m a beast, kid?”

“You’re the fucking king of all beasts, Negan,” Carl snaps, pushing the plate aside, “Aren’t you happy? Isn’t it what you wanted?”

“It’s not.”

The honesty and simplicity with which he pronounces the words give Carl pause. He doesn’t know what to answer, he’s not sure there is something at all, and so he chooses silence. 

“Are you surprised?”

Carl simply shrugs. Negan smiles like someone who already knew what to expect from him.

“When I started building this I hadn’t thought of violence,” Negan says, “I think no one really does. Violence is impractical. It’s messy and dirty, forces you to constant clean ups. It also tends to create new walkers, if prolonged. Violence was not my first solution but it had to become it down the road.”

Carl remains silent for a few more seconds. Then he can’t help but ask. “Why?”

“Why?” Negan smirks again, “Because you’re right, kid. ‘Cause we live in a world of beasts.”

“So you had to become one, is that what you’re trying to say? It wasn’t you, the apocalypse forced you to?”

“Nah, it was me alright, kid. It was me all along. Perhaps it was me even before this shitshow, who the fuck can actually know. I thought I was an ordinary man, before this. Turned out I weren’t. Maybe I was a psychopath before too, can’t know for sure, I didn’t spend much time self-analyzing back then. Maybe I became one, maybe it was always in me. But it was a tool. I used it to get to where I am now.”

Carl growls and answers in the only way he can not to show any weakness. Attacking. “Yeah, and where are you? King of a bunch of assholes who fear you and steal your name. Some achievement. Seriously, where _did_ it get you?”

Negan looks at him, his eyes filled with the certainty and confidence of the man who doesn’t need to explain himself, because his actions speak out loud for him already.

“You know damn well where it got me, kiddo,” he says, standing up. And then, to underline the point, he smirks. “Eat your pizza,” one moment before leaving the room.

*

For the first couple weeks Negan doesn't tell him anything – where to go, what to do. He doesn't expect him to move his ass and work. He doesn't expect him to do shit, actually, not even eat, sleep or wash himself. Whatever thing he catches him do, he always seems ridiculously amused by it, and watches him intently the whole time, as if he wasn't even aware of the fact that Carl, too, might do things throughout the day.

One day he catches him busy sharpening the tip of a stick with the cutting edge of a stone. He watches him work on the wood with his eyes wide open and the usual smug smirk curling his lips upwards on just one side of his mouth, and after ten or more minutes of that shit he asks him what he's doing. Carl answers as honestly as possible, no shame whatsoever. "I'm getting myself a weapon."

"You're protected here," he answers, but he's smiling as if he knew the possible reply Carl might offer, already.

"I might need to protect myself from my protectors," he says, fighting the dreadful feeling of having answered following an unwritten script generated straight by Negan's mind.

In fact, Negan laughs. "Good answer," he says.

Carl looks down and squeezes the pointy stick in his hand. "You knew I'd say it."

"Yes. That's why it was good."

Carl throws away the stick.

The next day he wakes up and finds a gun on the nightstand. He's still occupying Negan's bedroom and he wonders for a second if he maybe forgot it there, and he shouldn't be supposed to pick it up. Then he picks it up anyway, letting it slide behind his back, held in place by the waistband of his pants.

He gets out of the room and looks around as if expecting to see physical changes in the world around him, just because now he’s holding a weapon. Nothing’s changed, though. He doesn’t feel any more protected than he felt before and he wonders for a second if that is because the gun is not enough to make him feel safe.

Then he realizes he already felt safe, even before the gun. He tries to hide a shiver and swallows, and that’s when Negan appears at the end of the hallway. Seriously, the man seems programmed to come out of hiding exactly on cue, every time.

“Ah, there you are,” he smiles and comes closer, “Did you get my gift?”

“I didn’t need it.”

“Of course you didn’t need it, you’re a big boy,” Negan smirks, “But you wanted it anyway, didn’t you?”

Carl goes for silence, and Negan laughs out loud.

“Oh, come on, kid, didn’t your dad teach you to say thank you upon receiving a present?”

“Don’t talk about him.”

“Jesus, if I didn’t know you any better I’d take you for a very poor conversation partner.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

Negan tilts his head, amused, and shifts the weight of his body from one leg to the other in a natural, nonchalant and irritatingly hypnotic movement. “Back when things were normal I only had one way to understand if I really knew someone, and that was Christmas presents. If finding one was easy and it took me no effort, I knew I knew the dude. Otherwise, chances were I didn’t know him and I didn’t give a shit about him either.” He stops talking to cast an amused look at Carl, who finds himself anticipating the rest of the story. Negan mentioned life before the apocalypse. No one ever does. But he stops telling, his lips curl into an even more irritating smile and he simply asks: “Was your present good?”

Carl feels the metal body of the gun getting warmer in contact with his skin. He feels its familiar weight, slightly pulling down his pants. He remembers how it was feeling it in his hand when he woke up in the morning, the shape, the design, the little dents in the handle, speaking of a history of violence. 

“Yes,” he answers honestly, because he hates to lie.

Negan smiles with clear satisfaction, and Carl hates himself for allowing him that.

“Merry Christmas, then,” turning around and gesturing him to come along, “We’re going out, now.”

“Out?” Carl frowns, but he finds himself following him, “Out where?”

*

Negan leads him to the deep of the woods out of a secondary door no one seems so be guarding, and Carl’s nervous because if the door wasn’t guarded it was obviously because Negan didn’t want it to be, and because what reasons could Negan have to take him out to the woods if not to kill him, or to feed him to the walkers?

But then again, if that was his intention, why would he want to do it behind the Savior’s back, some of whom would ask for nothing better than to see him torn to pieces by a horde, and why would he give him a gun right before that?

“Do you see that shack?”

The woods seem quiet, the light of the sun passes through the crown of leaves playing roof for it, and it’s not hard to spot the wrecked wooden structure right in the middle of a clearing. 

There are walkers, though, both in the house and around it. They’re in that peculiar state that always gets to them when they stay hungry long enough, the start kind of shutting down, Carl has seen that happen already. Their bodies decompose faster when they don’t eat. Arms and legs are usually the first to go, and they drop on the ground where they were standing up to a minute before, mechanically opening and closing their mouth, hoping for something to just dive down that black crater of its own volition, just to gather enough strength to slither away in search of more food. At first, they still growl. Soon enough, they stop doing that too, and the only sound you can hear is the regular snap of their jaws.

Hidden behind the trees next to Negan, Carl looks back at the shack after assessing the situation, and nods. “What about it?”

“There’s something I want inside it.”

“Then go get it.”

“Too many zombies.”

“They’re dormant.”

“Yeah,” Negan nods, “And they’ll wake up as soon as they see our juicy asses.”

“Your ass isn’t juicy.” The line comes out of his mouth naturally, as it would’ve come out had he been hunting with Daryl or Michonne. It’s kinda creepy, and it makes him think. 

Negan casts him half an amused sideway glance, and smirks instead of laughing, but Carl knows he’s pleased with the joke. And that’s yet another creepy thing that would make Carl think if he was inclined to think about it.

“My booty is damn fine, kiddo, but I do agree that yours look better than mine, though I would argue a few factors might have to be taken into account while judging, such as for example the fact that we’re thirty years apart.”

“Wow,” Carl grins, “Butthurt much?”

“Appropriately enough, since we’re talking ass,” Negan grins too, but then his eyes focus back on the shack, and Carl understands the time for joking is over. Negan’s got a hunter mind, and Carl’s practically being born into it. He understands that silent language spoken with gazes and discreet gestures. He wishes that was the only language Negan spoke, because he is as unbearable when he speaks as he’s manageable when he’s quiet. “You ever hunt for sport, kid?”

“No.”

“Liar,” Negan smirks, “But I won’t hold it against you. Anyway. We’re gonna take that shack, now. Piece of cake. We go in, kill them walkers, take what we need and run out. We’ll be back to Sanctuary in the blink of a freakin’ eye.”

“What’s inside?”

Negan doesn’t answer right away. He turns to look at Carl, studying him. “You need motive or you just curious?”

“I’m just curious.”

Negan smirks again and shrugs. “Then it’s a surprise. Come on.”

He moves first, and Carl follows. It’s easy to fall into a hunting routine, easier than it is to sustain a conversation with him. Negan’s a killing machine, he hits hard, fast and accurate, smashing heads right and left. He doesn’t waste time dislocating kneecaps and breaking bones, it’s just as he said, get in fast, take what you need, get out even faster. Carl can understand that, he can follow that. He uses his new gun as long as the bullets last, then they’re inside the shack, and it’s filled with walkers, walkers everywhere, all coming alive with the smell of their blood, and some sort of frenzy, an exaltation, takes him over completely. There’s a table in a corner, it’s mostly rotten but it doesn’t matter, he grabs a leg and breaks it, the sharp, uneven breaking point turns into his new weapon and he uses it to pierce, mouths, eyes, ears, every fucking hole he finds. 

There’s something more than getting something going on here, there’s something more than scavenging. He can feel the same delirious need to kill in Negan too, in the way he laughs and grunts with every blow, and the sound of his voice gets confused with his own, and they both mix with the walkers’ lament and the disgusting sound of their heads breaking, of their brains leaking to the floor.

Suddenly, Carl realizes it: there’s nothing in this place. Nothing but the walkers. And the walkers are the reason they’re here. Somehow, he doesn’t know how, Negan saw in him that he needed to break out, he needed to let some shit loose, and so he gave him a pretext, he gave him a weapon and he brought him to the only place where he could turn into death, and let it all out with no dramatic consequences.

Lucille swings one last time, a wide circle so fast some of the entrails still clinging to her barbed wire dress go flying all over the room, and then she falls upon the head of the last walker alive, breaking it open like a fucking watermelon. For a second, everything is silence, except for their erratic, heavy breaths filling the air of the room.

Then, Negan laughs. “Fuck, kid,” he says, bending on his legs for a second and then straightening himself up again as he hits his own knees with the palms of his hands, “Shit, this was gorgeous. Best Christmas ever. And it’s not even really Christmas, yet. Keep you around long enough, you’re gonna change my life.”

Carl drops the stick, and walks up to him, roughly grabbing him by the collar of his leather jacket. He’s filled to the brim with anger, because he feels fucking _good_ and he hates himself for it. He hates himself for feeling better at Sanctuary than he ever did at home, he hates Negan for understanding him better than his dad ever did and he hates himself for liking it, for liking the feeling of complete freedom and boundlessness coming from that, and it’s all this man’s fault, all his fault for showing him that there was something beyond the prison of goodwill he had accepted to share with his father, beyond the wall of righteousness they never wanted to cross. Out of the borders of their sacred imaginary utopist town there’s a savage, cruel world, a world his dad is not part of, but that world is Carl’s kingdom. He was ten when the outbreak started. He remembers almost nothing of a life without death. His dad’s world means nothing to him – Negan’s world is his world. And if Negan hadn’t shown it to him, he could’ve gone on with life as it was in Alexandria, nice houses, white fences, wooden porches, sharing lunch, cooking cookies with Carol, the long walks with Michonne, playing with Judith, shooting squirrels with Daryl, and all that would’ve still making sense, but now it’s too late, now he’s covered in blood and he’s excited about it, and just like he thought when he was facing Negan on top of that wall, there’s nothing left of the kid he was inside him. Negan destroyed it. 

“Asshole!” he barks in his face, “We could’ve died!”

“Shit, kid,” Negan laughs, “I’m flattered you were worried about me too.”

“I don’t give a shit about you! I could be dead now!”

“That’s right,” Negan’s voice suddenly turns brisk as he grabs him by his hair and tugs hard enough to make his cowboy hat roll to the floor, “That’s right, little twat. You could be dead. You realize what it means? One of those monsters could be feeling its guts with your guts, right now, but the walkers are lying on the floor and you’re alive, instead, screamin’ at me, and it’s _worth something_ , Carl. Your life is fuckin’ worth something, and believe me, I don’t say that ‘bout a lot of people. Almost no one, in fact. So next time you wanna climb on a wall and beg me to kill you, think back of this moment and _don’t_.”

“Piece of shit…” Carl hisses and growls, and he pushes forward to try and free himself from the grasp of Negan’s fingers, and when the man finally loosens his hold he thinks he’s gonna clash against him and break him, just break him, that’s all he wants, break him like he broke him too, but instead what he does is press against him, and in a second he feels the rough touch of his beard against his own smooth face, and they’re kissing, and Carl has no idea how it happened, but it’s happening, and it’s setting fire to his whole body.

Negan smells of aftershave and synthetic leather, underneath the rotten blood that’s covering them both, and for a second Carl vaguely wonders what scent Negan’s smelling on him before he decides he doesn’t give a shit about it. He clings to the man’s jacket and pushes his tongue right into his mouth, and when Negan finally answers with the touch of his own Carl withdraws and bites down hard at his bottom lip.

Negan hisses, “Fuck, kid,” and then he laughs, and Carl hates the sound of that laughter, and he’s at the same time completely exalted by it, and his hands run down to the buckle of Negan’s belt, his fingers clumsily fumbling with it. “Whoa,” Negan comments, “We’re on a rush.” But he doesn’t try to stop him, and Carl’s grateful about that, because any kind of pause would force him to slow down and consider what he’s doing, and he doesn’t wanna do it. He’s covered in walkers blood, surrounded with walkers corpses and he just wrapped his fingers around a killer’s cock, and he doesn’t wanna take some time to think about it, because he’s sure if he did he’d go mad.

“Shut up,” he pants as he squeezes Negan’s cock in his fist. He’s hard as hell, for fuck’s sake, it’s the most perfect thing Carl ever held in his hands beside the handle of a gun and his baby sister. It makes him feel powerful, to hold it, it makes him feel powerful knowing he had something to do with it for reasons he doesn’t wanna investigate. And it makes him feel understood, understood and accepted, because the bulge at his crotch mirrors this precisely, and if he’s sick and Negan’s sick too, well, maybe that’s something they can share, and even if it was only that there’s no one else he can share this with, only him, and that’s okay.

“Sorry, kiddo, that wouldn’t be me,” Negan smiles and there’s something different in that smile, a spark of softness behind his cruelty that makes him more human for a second than he’s ever been up to now. He raises a hand and holds the gauze around Carl’s head in his fingers, pulling it up slightly. “I’m gonna take it off you.”

“Don’t,” Carl grunts and presses his whole face against his chest, holding Negan’s cock so hard he might break it, “Leave it be.”

“Leave it be my ass,” Negan answers sternly, pulling the bandages off his face in a swift movement. Carl hisses, lowering his face, and Negan answers by forcing him to look up again. He brushes his hair off his face and takes a good look at his empty socket, and there’s no disgust on his face, no repulsion in his eyes, and no trace of lie in his gaze. “I like you better without it. It’s truer to yourself.”

“A fucking damage.”

“We’re all damaged, but some of us are still glorious, kid.”

That sounds like a lie, but it’s a nice lie to believe in, and Carl sprints on his tiptoes again, curling his free arm around Negan’s neck to kiss him again. The feeling of communion filling him up right now doesn’t wanna hear about fading away. Every molecule of his body finds correspondence in every molecule of Negan’s. He’s never felt this way before. So completely, fully comprised. But it might just be the smell of blood getting to his head. He’s determined not to think about it.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says, and it costs him, because he would never show himself less than a hundred percent sure of everything he says and does in front of this man, but he really doesn’t know, and he hopes Negan can offer some guidance. 

Negan laughs in a low voice, shaking his head. “Damn, you don’t have to do shit, kid. Let me take care of it.” And he really doesn’t understand what he means by that until he feels his hand, so much bigger than his own, land on his crotch and palm him through his clothes.

He lets out a groan filled with frustration and releasing tension, and all his body tends to Negan’s, all his senses seem to concentrate on the small portion of him Negan’s touching. Even the barrier of his clothes seems non-existent, right now, impalpable. “Touch me,” he growls desperately.

“I would’ve done it anyway but it’s nice to hear you ask for it, I gotta say,” Negan answers with a smirk Carl would gladly scratch it off his face with a set of claws. Luckily, Negan doesn’t leave him enough time to get fully angry, because he pulls down his zipper and his fingers slide past it, rubbing his erection. A fuller moan of pleasure escapes Carl’s lips, and he doesn’t even feel ashamed about it. In this world, things are what they are. Death is a thing even children must deal with on a daily basis. Food and ammo falls in the end of the one who kills the most for them. A roof upon your head is not a common right but a privilege. And pleasure can only be found in total relinquishment of all control and shame.

It’s just masturbation. Carl must’ve done it a hundred times on his own. It’s only different because it’s someone else doing it to him, but different doesn’t mean worse. On the contrary, it feels fucking good. Good enough to say it out loud. Good enough to moan and curse and then whimper like a kid when pleasure seems to take his whole being over, and his fingers simply refuse to let go of Negan’s cock, even though he’s not jerking him off, he’s just holding onto it the same way a child would hold onto his favorite toy in a time of stress and fear. Negan fiercely drag him towards his orgasm one pull after the other and all Carl can do in response is cling to him.

And as a matter of fact he’s the only one coming.

He does it with a weak growling sound, like a wolf cub, and then he collapses on Negan, breathing heavily, his eye shut closed. It takes him minutes to pick himself up, and when he does he gasps and withdraws violently, letting go of the unchanged hardness of Negan’s cock as if it was made of fire. With his heart beating like a hammer, a few steps away from him, he watches Negan as if he had never seen him before, and then he blushes. He didn’t even think he was still capable of it.

Negan looks at him, then at his own cock, then once again at him. Finally, smiling, he tucks his cock away and zips his pants back up. “Another time,” he says. Carl tries to swallow and doesn’t manage.

“I don’t know what the fuck happened,” he says with a shaky voice.

“Well, I do, kid,” Negan laughs, “You got horny. Only natural for kids your age. Wouldn’t worry about it, I understand, I’m a fine piece of ass, despite my age.”

He tries to take a step towards Carl, but Carl moves ten steps back, until his back hits the wall, and it does it so hard the wooden boards creak under the blow. Negan stops moving right away, the smile disappearing from his face. He raises both arms, as though signaling for surrender, and just looks at him.

“Kid.”

“I don’t know what the fuck happened,” Carl repeats, out of breath.

“Nothing bad,” Negan answers, “It’s okay.”

“I don’t know what the fuck is happening!” Carl insists, his voice high-pitched as he brings a hand around his throat to try and feel if there’s something wrapped around it, because he feels like suffocating.

“You’re having a mild panic attack, kid, it’s nothing serious,” Negan goes on talking as he’s been doing for the last few minutes, slowly, clearly, reassuringly. There’s a method to what he does and the way he speaks, that much is true. Carl has no idea where this is coming from, he just feels with utmost clarity that if he hasn’t died yet, if his heart hasn’t burst or simply given up, is because Negan’s handling him like this.

“My heart,” Carl wheezes, “I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“No, you’re not,” Negan lowers his arms and straightens himself up. “Hey. Kid. Look at me.”

“I don’t wanna look at you!” Carl finally shrieks, “To think there’s not even a fucking reason why we’re here! You just brought me up to kill some zombies and—”

“No, hey, there’s a reason why I needed your help here,” Negan smirks, finding his smugness back where he had left it as he tried to handle him. He moves towards a corner of the room and kicks away an old carpet, stained with old and new blood. There’s a trapdoor underneath. He opens the squared door to reveal half a dozen of glass bottles filled with a perfectly transparent liquid that could be water but clearly reveals itself not to be when Negan picks one of them up, uncorks them and swallows a mouthful of it, making such a face it would be impossible not to get it’s alcohol. “See? Moonshine. Thought you might want a taste too.”

Carl lowers his eye on the bottle Negan’s now offering to him. His heartbeat slowly slows down. His breath gets back under control. He suddenly feels like crying, an urge so overwhelming he feels his throat tighten and ache. And then, as tears finally start rolling down his cheeks, he feels like laughing madly too. And he does, as he accepts the fucking bottle.

*

“How did you know what was happening to me?”

“I wasn’t always a charming tyrant, you know. I was a social worker, before. Worked with kids your age. You have no idea how many panic attack I had to defuse every week.”

Carl turns to look at him, sitting between the corpses lying on the wrecked porch of the shack, stopping halfway through the movement of lifting the now half empty bottle of liquor to his mouth for the umpteenth time today. “Seriously?”

“Why, is it so hard to believe?”

“I don’t know,” Carl smirks, “Did you stick your hands down the pants of all the kids you worked with?”

“Smartass,” Negan grins, stealing the bottle from him to drink, “What about you, you hang on the dick of all the father figures in your life?”

“Shut up,” Carl laughs too, “And you’re not a father figure to me.”

“You sure, kid? I can handle daddy issues.”

“I don’t doubt it, but this isn’t what’s going on here.”

Negan doesn’t answer for almost a full minute. He sips at the liquor, staring at the deep of the woods right in front of him, and then he asks. “So what _is_ going on here, kid?”

Carl takes some time to think about it. He doesn’t feel particularly better than before. He does feel more confident, though. More aware, in a way, even though he’s not sure about what. About himself, maybe. He feels he knows himself a little bit better, somehow, after today. After these last few weeks.

“I don’t know for sure,” he admits, “I’m not sure this is a good thing. I just think maybe sometimes bad things can be right for someone too.”

Negan half-turns to look at him. “You think this is right for you?”

“Don’t come up with a conscience just now, okay, we had sex.”

“I wasn’t talking about the sex,” Negan sighs, shaking his head, “Jesus fucking Christ. Kids. I had sworn I’d have had nothing to do with them anymore.” He sighs again and finally turns to him once more. “I was talking about staying with me. At the Sanctuary.”

“I don’t know. I’m still waiting to understand what kind of a plan you might have for me.”

“Jesus, you’re dense,” Negan snickers, “I wanna make you my second, Carl. You’ve got something no one of my men has. You have the brains to think for yourself, the guts to act upon your instinct and the sheer luck to achieve what you want more than half the time. These qualities are rarely found together. Some of my men have brains. A lot of them got balls. Very few are lucky. You’re all things together, a precious convergence of positive aspects I want on my side.”

Carl looks at him, uncertainly. “I’m not sure I like your side,” he says, “I think now I’m ready to admit my dad’s way was bound to fail, but I’m not sure you got it right yet.”

“I ask for nothing better than to show you,” Negan smiles dashingly, shrugging lightly. “I like that you don’t take shit for granted, you wanna try everything before you decide what you think of it. That’s smart, I can respect that. Then let me show you where I am and where I wanna go. Then, you’ll choose.”

This might be one of those mistakes you never recover from in your life, Carl thinks in the back of his mind, as he nods and holds out his hand to receive the bottle back. He might start missing home before he can get used to the Sanctuary. He might find out this whole operation is even worse than it looks. He might end up standing against his dad, if he stays, one day.

But this is a chance at something new. It’s more than Carl had two weeks ago.

It’s a start.


End file.
